"This means that people can no longer get convicted for violating the copyright monopoly alone. The court just declared it illegal for any court in Europe to convict somebody for breaking the copyright monopoly law when sharing culture, only on the merits of breaking the law. A court that tries somebody for violating the copyright monopoly must now also show that a conviction is necessary to defend democracy itself in order to convict. This is a considerably higher bar to meet." Well, that's progress, I guess.

Well according to research published in the form of those anti-piracy warnings that you can't skip past when you load the DVD, piracy aids terrorism. Therefore fighting copyright violations is protecting democracy.

Because we all know torrenting DVDs aids terrorism more than a government giving financial, political and military support to extremists purely because they were enemies of enemies at one point in time.

In a sense it is "Terrorism." Those who benefit most from the socioeconomic system are "terrified" by anything that affects negatively their earning/profit potential.

Actually, even then it would only be "terrorism" if the file-sharing was done with the intent to cause harm and/or "terror." Alas, most file-sharing is done with the intent of sharing -- for entertainment, for education, for simply making certain that difficult-to-obtain items don't disappear completely -- and the parts about causing harm and terror do not apply.

Those who benefit most from the socioeconomic system are "terrified" by anything that affects negatively their earning/profit potential.

It's even worse. They're terrified of anything that effects negatively their earning/profit GROWTH potential. They can make 100s of millions (not taking into account their accounting practices), but aren't satisfied if it didn't match their expectation* of billions.

I wonder how far-reaching this will be. People seem to be all gung-ho for sharing, until some business wants to share information about its customers to advertisers, and then suddenly sharing is evil. Can you really be 'pro file sharing' on one hand, and then demand that your right to privacy be respected on the other, as it pertains to information that companies are allowed to share about you?

IMHO, I don't know about this being a 'human right', but I do think it's a good decision. It's time to stop pretending that shit which is infinitely copyable should not be copied. Even if it kills entire industries, it's a step backward to think you can put information/content 'out there' and expect it to remain under your control, unless you encrypt it. (And even then, you better be damn sure that the intended recipients won't share it either.) It would be a bit hypocritical though for people to think that sharing only applies to information they WANT to have shared. Either sharing is good, or it isn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Private conduct is not a copyrighted works and is not produced with the intent that other people consume it, so your comparison between copyrighted works and details about private conduct is inherently flawed. A copyrighted work is created intentionally by you whereas tracking data is created from you simply being yourself and is even not produced by you yourself.

Private conduct is not a copyrighted works and is not produced with the intent that other people consume it, so your comparison between copyrighted works and details about private conduct is inherently flawed.

Not really, since they have two things in common:

1. There are people that want to share the information with each other
2. There are other people who wish not to have this information shared

Technology does not discriminate based on intent, so it doesn't matter WHY it came into being, and who the intended recipients were is really irrelavent. Either you're going to allow sharing wholesale, or you're not. And really, it's futile to try and prevent it; that would be kind of like pissing into the wind.

Technology does not discriminate based on intent, so it doesn't matter WHY it came into being, and who the intended recipients were is really irrelavent. Either you're going to allow sharing wholesale, or you're not. And really, it's futile to try and prevent it; that would be kind of like pissing into the wind.

That's exactly the kind of an argument I was expecting and you swallowed the hook, sinker and all. You see, you didn't really think this through: technology may not discriminate based on intent, but we are humans being and we are indeed capable of doing that. If you go by the "it's just data and all data should be free," then you've just basically said that your social security IDs, your real name, address, the names of all of your relatives, the filenames and contents of anything you produce, your e-mails, your banking details, even your god damn passwords should be shared freely -- after all, they're all data, and you just yourself said "it doesn't matter WHY it came into being, and who the intended recipients were."

Except that is not what I said. What I said was that if you take a piece of content, and you say it's ok to share this whether the content owner wants you to or not, then you have no moral ground to tell others not to share things that you wish them not to. To that end, I think it's dumb to try and prevent sharing, period. Not because 'information wants to be free', but because if information is out there and somebody wants to share it, we do not have the technology to prevent them from doing so, and laws don't seem to do much to help in this regard, because it's easy to get away with. It's kind of like people smoking weed; in the US, we spend all kinds of money and resources to try and stop it, but it keeps going on, so now they have legalized it in two states (as welll they should havve).

Insofar as my name, address, phone number, names of family members, etc, this is all publically accessible information anyway, so why would I wish to keep it private? Anybody who wants to obtain this info can do so without much difficulty. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't in the phone book. And anyway, most of the tracking that goes on is because companies want to spam you with ads But if we had stricter 'do not call/do not mail' laws, what purpose would they have to track you anymore if they couldn't profit from it? Maybe they could use my personal info in the aggregate/statistical sense, but do I give a shit? As long as they're not calling my house during dinner and trying to sell crap to me, not at all.

And what about sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers? Sure, companies COULD share that, but why would they? Any company that was caught sharing its customers' passwords probably wouldn't stay in business very long, so it's in their best interest to keep that stuff private. And who the hell would they share that with, besides people who wanted to hack into their system? Fail.

And anyway, we REALLY need to find better ways of identification so that this info does not have to be stored in databases. As for stuff you put online and need to keep private, that is what encryption is for. I've always said that if you have very sensitive data that's not secure enough to be stored on the server of your worst enemy, then it's not secure enough.

There is one fundamental difference. In case of sharing a copyrighted work, there is a book, a movie or some other dead thing attached to the information and maybe an expectation of monetary remuneration. When it comes to user profiling, the attached object is a living, breathing being, with hopes, dreams, feelings, emotions, etc. They don't tend to thrive too well when they are treated like cattle to make a profit of off.

It's a choice we need to make. Will we go for "Only the strong survive, so I don't have a problem making a buck by selling my own grandma to the highest bidder." or do we go for "As a group we want and need to make sure everybody has the best chance to lead a dignified and happy life."

There is one fundamental difference. In case of sharing a copyrighted work, there is a book, a movie or some other dead thing attached to the information and maybe an expectation of monetary remuneration.

Right, like the person/people who wrote the book or made the movie are dead things Ultimately, that's someone's livelihood that you're sharing with a few million of your closest friends. From my experience, when trading copyrighted content, filesharers don't tend to discriminate between something that was made by a billion dollar corporation, or something made by an indie developer/artist who is struggling to survive.

You deliberately fail to understand that the information in the book/movie/painting is not necesarrily something pertaining to the authors life. (Even if it is, then that was by choice of the author). That is why I said the attachement might be "an expectation of monetary remuneration".

When we talk about user profiling it is information like every other piece of information, but that information has the potential to negatively impact someones real life in meatspace. We are not talking about illegal things, but things that hypocritical people feel offend their pompous sense of social norms. It is also something the "user" has no say in. The only thing guarding against it, is opting out of society. Not being able to safeguard ones own privacy can only lead to a painful existence.

Just look at what happened when Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky had their affair. Does having an affair impact the ability to run a country? I don't believe that for one second, but president Clinton was nearly impeached over it.

Does it matter that a good pediatrician has a penchant for watching wacky, but adult Asian porn in his spare time? No it doesn't, but that won't stop boring, bourgeois people branding the man a sexual deviant and shunning him and his practise. Of course to "protect" their "precious" offspring.

Does anyone need to know that a masseuse has an incontinence problem? Would there be people feeling comfortable with knowing a masseuse is probably peeing while kneeding the muscles?

What about a sexuologist, who was born without discernable genitals? An ambassador with toenail fungus? A culinairy chef with Crohn's disease?

The above examples are over the top exaggerations, but they do paint the picture. What do you have "hidden" that you don't feel the world has a right to know? Or are you such a limited and boring Goody Two-shoes that there are absolutely no parts of your life that warrant privacy protection?

And here we are hitting fair-use. Nobody can demand anything from you. You are free to talk about that product, to consume it under whatever conditions (like together with your girl-/boyfriend even if she/he did not buy that product - or not even likes to consume but is forced too), to write your opinion how good/bad that product is, to show and consume it together with friends and so on.

Its always a matter of balance and the interests or wishes of the producer is by no mean the most important aspect.

Sharing the product with friends is legal in many countries (private copy) for very good reasons. Selling the product on to somebody else once you not like to enjoy it any longer is legal and protected for reasons. Making copies and selling the product on is ILLEGAL for good reasons. Sharing for free? Without profit? Legal in lot countries. That people are still hunted down for that is illegal and that's what the court just outlined. They had to cause in reality people are still en masses hunted and robbed for something legal. That, my dear friend, is illegal.

does the fact that you're not profiting from it somehow make it excusable?

There is no excuse needed. Eg german law explicit says "Gewerbliche Ausmasse" what means profit. If no profit then not illegal. This IS law! That in reality SOME courts interpreted it different (and some not) is a problem. That problem got addressed now.

Are you to young to remember tape-mix sharing times? Tell me your excuse why that isn't illegal but cd-mix is (according to media-mafia, not the law as we just got confirmed).

And what if you're trading for something with somebody else? Isn't that technically profiting?

Its not how filesharing works. There is no give-to-get with those you share with just like there is no value assigned to bytes transfered. If you down- or upload the latest hollywood-video, a linux iso or music you produced your own, its all bytes that can be infinite duplicated, destroyed, edited and modified without any human interaction. With filesharing its more then clear that there is no profit, no earning associated for those sharing there data.

Are you to young to remember tape-mix sharing times? Tell me your excuse why that isn't illegal but cd-mix is (according to media-mafia, not the law as we just got confirmed).

The difference is that you couldn't make an infinite amount of tapes for $0, and share those with several million people, so it's not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. And besides, I'm not arguing that this stuff shouldn't be legal. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of those who say that it should be legal to share, but only what THEY think should be allowed to be shared.

Its not how filesharing works. There is no give-to-get with those you share with just like there is no value assigned to bytes transfered.

You've obviously never heard of FTP ratios Or IRC, where someone says, "I know you want x, I'll trade for it if you have y..."

Neither can I infinite upload for $0. Power is expensive and so is internet. Wait, I could make infinite copies of mix-tapes for $0 when people brought there tapes back so I could replace the old copied stuff with new copied stuff.

For FTP ratios: I did and also know there are people asking for money in return. That's unrelated to this article which is about filesharing with no profits (legal) and not the black market (illegal). Learn to differ, its not the same.

Wait, I could make infinite copies of mix-tapes for $0 when people brought there tapes back so I could replace the old copied stuff with new copied stuff.

Yeah, and probably about an hour for each one, depending on how many recorders there were. And the recorded copy will never be as good as the original either. This is not the same thing, and you know it. Computers are like virtual replicators.

I think they're going about this the wrong way. I know how much everyone wants to believe they're entitled to get something without paying, but please do realize that people's livelyhoods often depend on most of the works you download. Now, I'll be the first to say that what we have now is not fair to most content creators. Unless you're self-publishing your work (not always possible for large budget projects), most of the money is taken by the middlemen. Problem is, the attitude of "stick it to them" really accomplishes nothing except to deny the artist what few pennies they would have gotten. I take a rather novel approach to these things: If I like the content, the price is fair, and there's no drm, I'll pay for it. If not, guess what? I go without. Wow.
The problem is, those who think file sharing sends a message to these media conglomerates are absolutely correct, but it's not the message they intend. What it actually tells them is: We need to make more of this stuff and try even harder to cripple it with drm to force people to pay our ridiculous prices. The result? An endless cat and mouse game.
Legislating penalties for file sharing isn't going to help. What needs done instead is to get a handle on the drm problem and limit that. At the same time, the artists and content creators need to unite and deal with these middlemen (that can be done entirely without legislation). It's not going to be easy. There are no quick fix pills for this, and it's not a problem you can legislate away. It's a combination of greed on one side (both with the middlemen and those who pirate the content) and short-sightedness on the other (the content creators and the legislators). It will take a huge shift in mentality to overcome it, and it has to start with those who create the content and those who pirate it. Stop supporting it, in any way, even by pirating it because you're telling the big guys that you want more. The artists need to stand up for themselves and, yes, that might mean monetary hardship for a time. We need to surround these big conglomerates from both sides and cut them off. No laws, no petitions, no toothless protests will fix this. It's going to take action. Meanwhile, the legislators can do something useful on their end and either outlaw drm or enforce some kind of fair use terms on all drm mechanisms.
P.S. If I didn't make it clear, I only refer to pirates as those who download without having paid. I have no objections to anyone converting purchased media to alternate formats, or resorting to downloading to get an alternate copy of what they own that is more convenient for them.

I know how much everyone wants to believe they're entitled to get something without paying
...
If I like the content, the price is fair, and there's no drm, I'll pay for it. If not, guess what?

Everybody (first sentence) except you (second sentence). Do you see how your whole argumentation just collapsed?

If not here are the faults:
1) nobody likes to pay so its needed to enforce (and yet except you)
2) DRM is the alternate. Yet what you not know (maybe cause you not do fileshare) is that
a) DRM not works cause things are available also then and
b) DRM is contra-productive cause only buyers have it while fileshares have same content without DRM. Content accessible via filesharing having no restrictions, bought content has. One more reason to fileshare rather then buy.
3) everybody uses filesharing rather then paying as in either fileshare or buy and everybody who fileshares would buy otherwise. Both already multiple times proven wrong.

The problem is, those who think file sharing sends a message to these media conglomerates are absolutely correct, but it's not the message they intend.

You make exact the same mistake the big media does. You assume filesharers do that cause they are your enemies, have an agenda to kill you. Then you conclude you need to fight them. That is not working. You, media, is losing that fight since 15 long years!

You need to understand them as lazy potential customers. You not compete with free but with good services. Filesharing is a click, works fast and you can enjoy without any restrictions within minutes. Compare that with what the media offers.

Just look at itunes, spotify, its working IF the service is good. Stop wasting your energy making your services more and more bad (eg with DRM and huge money wasted on war rather then products and services) and get great services done that offer a similar easy to use and easy to enjoy result. Then customers come en mass. It works already, learn before its to late. You and media already wasted 15 years and what did you achieve? Customers hate you like hell!

a) DRM not works cause things are available also then and
b) DRM is contra-productive cause only buyers have it while fileshares have same content without DRM. Content accessible via filesharing having no restrictions, bought content has. One more reason to fileshare rather then buy.

Really? Do you have a crack for Diablo 3? Cuz I haven't seen anybody pull that one off yet ...

Dude, the other dude is right. There are lots youtube-clips, perfect proov. I not play games so you are asking the wrong guy. Maybe that's your problem and you should start to ask the right people like gamers rather then OSnews-freaks? :-)

You make exact the same mistake the big media does. You assume filesharers do that cause they are your enemies, have an agenda to kill you. Then you conclude you need to fight them. That is not working. You, media, is losing that fight since 15 long years!

Interesting. That's not how I meant to come across, at all. Quite the opposite of that. I'm not a fan of big media at all, and I think we actually agree, for the most part. I don't think file sharers are my enemies at all, and I'm not trying to fight them. I just think they should realize that, inadvertently, they're fighting themselves and the content creators. Notice that I say content creators, not big media.

You need to understand them as lazy potential customers. You not compete with free but with good services. Filesharing is a click, works fast and you can enjoy without any restrictions within minutes.

Lazy potential customers? Downloading takes a lot more effort than finding a copy to buy. You have to search through various torrent pages and file lockers until you find what it is you want, then hope enough other people have all of it (in the case of torrents) that you can download it. Then, you have to assume the file is accurately described (i.e. make sure it's not in a format you can't play even if the description says otherwise). And that's just media. Let's not even get into what you have to watch out for when trying to pirate software. I'd say that lazy is the exact opposite of what they are.

Just look at itunes, spotify, its working IF the service is good. Stop wasting your energy making your services more and more bad (eg with DRM and huge money wasted on war rather then products and services) and get great services done that offer a similar easy to use and easy to enjoy result. Then customers come en mass. It works already, learn before its to late. You and media already wasted 15 years and what did you achieve? Customers hate you like hell!

First off, you keep saying "you," like you think I'm big media. I'm on the opposite of them. Leaving that aside, services like Spotify are awesome if you happen to live in a region where they offer a large collection (I'm in the US and they're just barely starting to take off here). iTunes, however, is somewhat more of a problem. You see, the only things that are drm-free on iTunes are music and some ebooks. Movies, tv shows, and most books still have drm all over them. The result? I pay damn close to physical media prices for content that I still don't own. The drm may not be as invasive as that on, say, a blu-ray, but it comes with some nasty restrictions of its own, e.g. I can only play it on Apple devices and, should Apple ever flop, their authorization servers will go down and bye-bye all my purchased content with it once my current device dies. One additional problem with iTunes is that there are a lot of movies that you can't buy there, as they are only available for rental instead. $4 to $6 every time I want to watch a movie? Forget it. At the other side of the spectrum, I really like Netflix's streaming service. There's no pretence that I own the media; it's like Spotify for movies. I can watch as much as I want as long as I pay the $8/month subscription and the quality, while not up to blu-ray specifications, is still quite good on the highest setting.

I just think they should realize that, inadvertently, they're fighting themselves and the content creators.

Customers not fight, they chose.

For years media settled on CD/DVD and classic distribution-channels. Then internet happened and with it a new diatribution-channel. That distribution-channel gained in all areas. Books? Amazon! Shopping? eBay! and so on.

But no music, no media. Media decided to igoring customers demand to use that new distribution-channel. Napstar was an enemy rather then turning it into an opportunity. Years long every attempt to make that channels available was fight. A lost fight since customers used it anyways but then without Media. That was and is foremost a decision done by media. Customers have choice and they chose.

Very very late only when a big US company like Apple came in they opened to a certain degree a little bit. And? itunes hits like a bomb. Spotify hits like a bomb. What does that tell you? What does that proof us? Customers WOULD pay if the f*cking media-mafia stops that stupid boykott and starts to offer there services.

Notice that I say content creators, not big media.

What is wrong, Creators have nothing , null, zero to say or decide else that problem would not exist. Creators are not losing with the new distribution-channels, they are winnig. That, the middle man, the media-mafia is losing huge. Control, money. That's why they fight so hard and take content creators with them down.

Downloading takes a lot more effort than finding a copy to buy. You have to search through various torrent pages and file lockers until you find what it is you want, then

You never tried. Its like a google-search where you add eg artist, title and press search and then get as result a well sorted list. Click a search-result, download starts and 1-2 minutes later you have it.

It is even easier then that, You can also stream the music or video direct into your favorite player, watch/listen while download happens in background optionally. No DRM, any language, any platform, any time.

You should really try. Its such a great feeling of uncomplicated service that you may never use your bought DRM-dongle again. Do it like me: buy that DRM-dongle, throw it in a corner and download the same content from some filesharing place. Fair, uncomplicated, legal. Just sucks I still have to walk into a shop or wait long time for deliver and have a whole corner full of trash I need to keep for the case media-mafia hunts me down illegal and wastes some more $ of its customers (content creators, customer-group number 2 screwed by media).

Spotify are awesome if you happen to live in a region where they offer a large collection (I'm in the US and they're just barely starting to take off here)

I am not in the US and here they suck but it is the best offer available. See what I mean?

iTunes, however, is somewhat more of a problem. You see, the only things that are drm-free on iTunes are music and some ebooks.

Yes, they suck even more and make even more cash cause there is NO alternate! This stupid media-industry fights for years against services in that now not-so-new-any-longer distribution-channel. Today, internet age and they still fight internet! I not wonder people give a sh*t and go piratebay. Ignore customers and they ignore you. Fight customers and they ignore you more and then you lose.

It *shouldn't* be a free-for-all. Content creators *should* get paid fairly.

Clearly, no one is going to generate content for (solely) free - they need to be reimbursed somehow. If we have uninhibited sharing, the distributors will find ever more unpleasant and cumbersome means of restricting us and shaking us down for cash.

The solution (IMHO) is to bring in fairer laws regarding fair use. Allow us to (temporarily) share content with friends an family (as we would if we were sharing a book). Allow us to freely convert content into different formats and platforms, and not expect us to pay multiple times for the same content. Allow us to resell our content, providing we forfeit our right to use it in future. Allow us to purchase content from any market, regardless of our geography and platform, so we can seek the best value deal we can.

Copying is partially a response to the ever-more restrictive constraints that distributors place on us. Rebalance the relationship, and there will be no excuses for avoiding pay a fair price to content creators.

After downloading and enjoying a Dredd screener last year I wanted to know more so I bought the bluray but.. it's one of these barebone nordic releases - no added value whatsoever!
Now I'm torrenting my damn extras.